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9
Gigi
The next day at training, the girls were giving me no end of shit. Beau had posted our pictures to social media with #puppylove underneath it.
People went insane.
Especially with the one of us kissing.
“Beau and Gigi, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes—” Jillian said from the treadmill beside me.
“Shut it, Jillybean. If I hear that stupid song one more time, I swear I’ll hurt you,” I huffed from my treadmill.
“Gosh, you guys look so cute together. I can’t believe you’re dating,” she said as she slowed to a walk to cool off.
“Angelique said she would give us each a puppy after their shots on Wednesday,” I said, barely able to control myself.
Jillian turned to me. “I’m talking about you dating one of the hottest guys in the world and you’re talking about puppies?”
“Did you see the puppies?” I said with a huge grin.
She laughed at me. “Nope, all I saw was that hottie devouring your face. Again.”
All I did was shrug her off.
“I’m serious, what changed all of a sudden? You were furious at him a few days ago.”
I wanted nothing more than to tell her the truth. My body physically hurt because I couldn’t. “I don’t know. I guess it was the way he apologized. It seemed so sincere.” And that part was true. Beau’s face and apology had been full of remorse.
Just remembering the somber, regretful look he’d given me, warmed my heart. What I couldn’t tell Jillian was the reason we were now a ‘couple’. That part dug into my soul—the very essence of who I was.
Growing up, I didn’t have much. But I did have my integrity and my honesty. Lying had never been in my wheelhouse. This was going to suck. Big time.
Right now, the cameras were recording our conversation. I had to play my part.
“And because he’s hot?” she asked, wiping her face with the white towel around her neck.
“Possibly that too,” I said, smiling back at her and wishing so badly I could tell her the truth.
Angelique and Marcel had been relieved—to say the least—that Beau and I had agreed to faking a relationship. They loved the picture that Beau had posted of us. When Angelique had told us we were each getting our pick of the litter, I felt like maybe something good would come out of this recipe for disaster.
I’d immediately wanted to start shopping for puppy stuff, but Beau said we’d go to the store after picking up the puppies on Wednesday. It seemed like an eternity to wait.
After our workout, I spent the afternoon cleaning my place. If there was one thing that helped when I was upset or conflicted about something, it was cleaning. It always made me feel better to have control over my surroundings when I couldn’t over anything else.
The kitchen, living room, and bathroom sparkled. I was putting the finishing touches on my bedroom when my eye caught sight of an old, blue binder I’d had forever.
I smiled and picked it up. Dropping to my bed, I gently touched the front cover. The faded picture of Beau was one of his early ones—when he’d first started in the junior league.
He was posed, hockey stick in his hands, gleam in his eye—ready for the world. And the world had been more than ready for him. They called him the prince of hockey and I loved that.
My fingers traced the pink heart I’d glued underneath his photo. I smiled, remembering the day I started this binder. My dad had loved hockey. He’d known so many stats and standings it was crazy.
When Beau surfaced—actually, before he’d surfaced onto the national league’s radar, he had been on my dad’s radar. He’d had Beau pegged for years.
I didn’t really know much about him, other than that he had a dreamy name. The kind of name the hero in a romance novel had.
Early on—when Dad started giving me ‘collector’s items’ as keepsakes from Beau’s career—I started this album. It was a goofy, girly, first-boy-crush thing to do. Even so, I still loved adding to it whenever I could.
